Chogha Zanbil — archaeological site
Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada · CC BY-SA 2.0

Chogha Zanbil

  • 1 min read
  • 32.008° N 48.521° E
  • UNESCO World Heritage

Interesting facts

  • The name Chogha Zanbil is usually translated as basket mound, while its builder called the city Al Untash-Napirisha.
  • Every eleventh course of bricks in the ziggurat was inscribed with cuneiform text naming the king and the gods.
  • The ziggurat was raised in two phases: first two levels with their temples, then later extended to its full five stages.
  • Three concentric walls enclosed the city; inscriptions say the outer wall had seven gates, though only two have been found.
  • Inscribed bricks name some 22 temples, but only around half of them have been located on the ground.
  • Its four corners point to the cardinal directions, and only the south-west gate gave access all the way to the top.
  • Half-life-size statues guarded the gates, including one of blue-glazed terracotta dedicated to the god Inshushinak.
  • Five underground tombs lie beneath a funerary palace; one held the cremated remains of five people, while another, untouched, held a woman aged 40 to 60.
  • Fragments of white and black glass tiles were found in one of the temples.
  • Apart from priests and servants, few people may ever have lived in the holy city.

Why it is worth it

Rising from the flat plain of Khuzestan, the ziggurat of Chogha Zanbil is one of the very few stepped temple towers of ancient Mesopotamia and Elam to survive in recognisable shape. It was raised around 1250 BC by the Elamite king Untash-Napirisha, chiefly in honour of Inshushinak, the protector god of Susa, and stood at the centre of a new religious city the king named Dur Untash, "the town of Untash".

The tower originally measured about 105 m on each side at its base and reached roughly 53 m in height, in five stages; today about 25 m still stand, which is enough to give a sense of its mass. Its core is mud brick, faced with baked brick, and thousands of these bricks carry inscriptions in cuneiform: more than 5,000 inscribed bricks have been found, almost all in the Elamite language and a few dozen in Akkadian, naming the king and the gods to whom the buildings were dedicated. Around the ziggurat lie the remains of temples, a sacred precinct enclosed by concentric walls, with further buildings spread across the wider city.

Around 645 BC it was sacked by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal during his campaigns against Elam. The site then lay buried for more than two and a half millennia, until an inscribed brick was noticed around 1935 by a geologist prospecting for oil. The French archaeologist Roman Ghirshman excavated it between 1951 and 1962, clearing close to 100,000 cubic metres of earth. In 1979 Chogha Zanbil became the first place in Iran to be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Getting there

Chogha Zanbil lies in Khuzestan Province, about 30 km southeast of ancient Susa and roughly 80 km north of Ahvaz. The nearest town is Shushtar, about 31 km away, and the nearest airport is Dezful Airport (DEF), about 49 km away; Ahvaz International Airport is the larger alternative. The site is reached by road from Shush, Shushtar or Haft Tepe.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Iran 48The Most Remarkable Archaeological Sites in Iran 6The Greatest Archaeological Wonders in Iran 8The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Iran 13The Most Remarkable UNESCO-Listed Archaeological Sites 114The Greatest UNESCO-Listed Archaeological Wonders 149The Most Remarkable Archaeological Sites 193The Greatest Archaeological Wonders 306The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites 557

From the encyclopaedia

Chogha Zanbil is an ancient Elamite complex in the Khuzestan province of Iran. It is one of the few existing ziggurats outside Mesopotamia. It lies approximately 30 km (19 mi) southeast of Susa and 80 km (50 mi) north of Ahvaz. The construction date of the city is unclear due to uncertainty in the chronology of the reign of Untash-Napirisha, but is clearly sometime in the 14th or 13th century BC. The conventionally assumed date is 1250 BC. The city is currently believed to have been destroyed by the Neo-Assyrian ruler Assurbanipal in about 645 BC, along with the Elamite capital of Susa, though some researchers place the end of occupation in the late 12th century BC. The ziggurat is considered to be the best preserved example of the stepped pyramidal monument by UNESCO. In 1979, Chogha Zanbil became the first Iranian site to be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

32.00833, 48.52083per Wikidata